Having done a bit of reading on the Internet, I’m aware of something called Brexit, a poorly thought-out idea springing from the minds of a few well-off, and often strange, individuals. They convinced enough Brits that there was an emergency at hand (there wasn’t), and that Brexit would save them from it (it won’t).
Now comes Mayor Colin Read, a well-off individual, foisting a poorly thought-out idea on the City of Plattsburgh: Essentially killing the city’s main recreation assets.
Let’s call it Rexit.
The idea behind Rexit, whose details are taking form behind closed doors as I write this, is that Plattsburgh faces a dire fiscal emergency that can only be solved by divesting the city of a) its indoor recreation facility at the Crete Center b) its public marina c) its public gymnasium. Or maybe all three.
I won’t go into all of the city’s numbers here, because I don’t believe them. There’s a reason for this. I don’t believe anything that comes from city government since Read took over in 2017.
Let’s take the marina as an example. Under the previous administration, the city had a long-term plan to expand the marina and run a surplus that would subsidize other programs. Mayor Read, as part of an effort to scrap the expansion, quietly changed the city’s “mortgage” on the marina docks from a 15-year to a 10-year term, which increased the city’s annual payment from $77,000 to $101,000—making the city’s recreation fiscal picture look way worse than it actually is.
Another example: Councillor Rachelle Armstrong, in answering a query about the potential closing of the gym, said hard choices had to be made:
More broadly, since Plattsburgh has been ranked the 2nd most fiscally stressed city in the entire state, and since the Rec Complex has consistently run a deficit with the gym's deficit being the greatest, I consider an investigation into its operations and finances to be my responsibility as the committee chair with oversight in this area.
Wow, remember when Plattsburgh was ranked the “2nd most fiscally stressed city in the entire state”?
Me neither.
Because it wasn’t. And isn’t.
It’s, like, 19th.
Not great, but that's not even in the stressed-city playoffs, let alone vying for the title. When I pointed this out, Armstrong to her credit apologized for the mistake, but such an egregious error casts doubt on the entirety of the city’s “investigation” of recreation.
The rec debate brings up a question: Why would the mayor and his allies on the council want the city’s finances to look more dire than they are?
I can’t speculate on his allies, but the mayor, like all of us, wants to be the hero of his own narrative. He just seems more hell-bent than the rest of us. He’s constantly bad-mouthed the city’s finances, saying that the city must increase its fund balance or we will all die of higher taxes. (Meanwhile, he’s busy raising taxes—and the city’s residential assessments have skyrocketed, pushing tax bills still higher, but that gets in the way of a good story.)
It’s almost like he’s trying to write a triumphant, concluding chapter in a book about how he saved a city from financial ruin—and can point to the fund balance as proof. Someone driving that narrative has incentive to make things look terrible in the early chapters, and an excuse to shut down or sell off irreplaceable city assets, to get to that heroic climax.
Is there an alternative?
Why, yes.
Slow down. Do a real study about things like shared services, rather than the rushed 90-day “process,” with little public input, that’s been imposed on the city this fall.
Include in the discussion two just-elected council members, Paul DeDominicas and Ira Barbell, who have plenty of experience with government budgets.
Give people a real chance to weigh in on decisions that on their present course seem certain to deprive the city of prime revenue-generating opportunities, and more important, take away some of the city’s most valued community resources.
In short, think of the future of this city.
And don’t bend to the mayor’s self-serving desire to pen his own phony happy ending.
